ALVMNVS  BOOK  FVND 


M  &K 


SHIPS   IN   HARBOUR 


BY 

DAVID  MORTON 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

ttbe    Hmfcfcerbocfcer    press 

1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


t 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


r 

3>£ 

O 

S- 

f1 

rw 


To 
T.  B.  M. 

AND 

M.  W.  M. 
THIS  BOOK  is  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 


For  the  privilege  of  reprinting  some  of  the 
poems  included  in  this  book,  the  author's 
thanks  are  due  to  The  Bookman,  The  Century, 
The  New  York  Evening  Post,  Harper's  Magazine, 
Poetry:  A  Magazine  of  Verse,  The  Designer,  The 
Nation,  The  New  York  Sun,  Collier's  Weekly, 
Good  Housekeeping,  The  Bellman,  Contemporary 
Verse,  Everybody's  Magazine,  The  Smart  Set, 
Ainslee's,  The  Sonnet,  McCalVs  Magazine,  The 
Touchstone  Magazine,  The  Forum,  and  The  Lyric. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

WOODEN  SHIPS  . 

OCTOBER  DAY-MOON  .          .         .  .        •  •        4 

A  GARDEN  WALL         ....  * 

NAPOLEON  IN  HADES  .         .  »         .         ® 

SYMBOLS     .          .         .         .         .         .         •         •  .      ? 

EXILED        .          . 

MARY  SETS  THE  TABLE        .  9 

AUTUMN  TEA  TIME     .  .10 

BATTLEFIELDS      .......       11 

ONE  DAY  IN  AUTUMN  ...  .12 

AN  OLD  HOUSE  AND  GARDEN        ....       13 

IMMORTALIS          .  ...  .14 

TOURING     ........       15 

SUMMER 17 

OLD  SHIPS 18 

THE  TOWN 19 

[vii] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

AFTER  SUMMER  RAIN            .....  24 

THE  KINGS  ARE  PASSING  DEATHWARD  ...  25 

RENEWAL    ......••  26 

RESPONDIT            .......  27 

JEWELS        .....•••  28 

CHORUS       ........  29 

SYMBOL .          .  30 

To  AN  UNKNOWN  ANCESTOR          ....  31 

INTIMATION           .......  32 

ON  A  DEAD  MOTH 33 

MYSTIC       .         .         .          .         .          .         .          .  34 

LEVIATHANS          .          .          .          .          ...          .35 

INVIOLATE  .          .          .          .          .          .          .          .36 

MANUSCRIPTS       .......  37 

IN  AN  OLD  BURIAL  GROUND         ....  38 

ENCORE       . 39 

REDEMPTION         .......  40 

THE  HUNTED      .          .          .          .          .          .          .41 

THE  SCHOOLBOY  READS  HIS  ILIAD          ...  42 

MOMENTS    ........  43 

CLEAR  MORNING          .          .          .          .          ,    .      ,  44 

[  viii  ] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

RENAISSANCE       .         .         •         ,.         .          .          .45 

AN  OLD  LOVER  f          .    .      ,          .          .          .       46 

ONE  DAY  IN  SUMMER  .....       47 

VINES          r         .          .          .          .          *          .          .48 

AUDIENCE  *         .         .         .        ... '  -     .          .49 

THE  DANCE          .          .          .          .          .          .          .50 

ON  HEARING  A  BIRD  SING  AT  NIGHT    .          .          .51 
DAWN  ....          ...          .52 

DAFFODILS  OVER  NIGHT        .....       53 

VALUES        .....  54 

A  GHOST  OUT  OF  STRATFORD          ....       55 

WHO  WALKS  WITH  BEAUTY  .          .          .          .       56 

RACONTEUR          .          .         .         ...         .         .          .57 

AFFINITIES  .         .         .          .         .         ...       58 

TRANSFIGURATION         ......       59 

ONE  WAY  OF  SPRING  .          .         .         .         .          .       60 

FOR  A  SEQUESTERED  LADY  .          ,        .  f         .          .61 
HERITAGE   ........       63 

"SHIPPING  NEWS"       .         .         .         .         .          .64 

ARTICULATION      .......       65 

MOONFLOWERS  ......       66 

[ix] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHALLENGE          .......       67 

BEFORE  SPRING 68 

MOONS  KNOW  No  TIME      .....       69 

MY  NEIGHBOUR  ......       70 

AT  THE  NEXT  TABLE  .....       71 

SALVAGE     .         .         .          .          .         .          .          .72 

IN  A  GIRL'S  SCHOOL    ......       73 

AT  ELSINORE       .         .         .         .          .         .          .74 

To  WILLIAM  GRIFFITH          .....       75 

REVELATION         .......       76 

DISCOVERY  .......       77 

FOR  BOB:  A  DOG        ......       78 

IN  SUMMER          .......       79 

SURVIVAL    .         ...         .         .         .         .         .80 

NOMENCLATURE  .......       81 

To  ONE  RETURNED  FROM  A  JOURNEY  ...       82 
ATTENDANTS        .......       83 

RENDEZVOUS        .......       84 

SONNETS  FROM  A  HOSPITAL  ....       85 

THIS  LANE  IN  MAT    .         .         .         .         .         .89 

FUGITIVE 90 

[x] 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

AN  OLD  GARDENER     .                  .         .         .  .91 

THE  VEIL  .         .         .         ,         ..        .         .  .92 

THE  YEAR  is  OLD       .         ...         .  .93 

MARINERS  .         .         .         ...         .  .       94 

AN  ABANDONED  INN    .                   .         «•        .  .95 

PRONE        ......         .  .       96 

REVIVAL .97 

IMPOSTOR 98 

SNOW  DUSK        .         .         .         .         .         .  .99 

MOOD         .         *         .                  ...  .     100 

SHIPS  IN  HARBOUR      .         .  101 


[xi] 


SHIPS  IN  HARBOUR 


[i] 


WOODEN  SHIPS 

are  remembering   forests  where   they 
grew,— 

The  midnight  quiet,  and  the  giant  dance; 
And  all  the  murmuring  summers  that  they  knew 
Are  haunting  still  their  altered  circumstance. 
Leaves  they  have  lost,  and  robins  in  the  nest, 

Tug  of  the  goodly  earth  denied  to  ships, 
These,  and  the  rooted  certainties,  and  rest, — 
To  gain  a  watery  girdle  at  the  hips. 

Only  the  wind  that  follows  ever  aft, 

They  greet  not  as  a  stranger  on  their  ways; 

But  this  old  friend,  with  whom  they  drank  and 

laughed, 
Sits  in  the  stern  and  talks  of  other  days 

When  they  had  held  high  bacchanalias  still, 

Or  dreamed  among  the  stars  on  some  tall  hill. 


[3] 


OCTOBER  DAY-MOON 

T   OOSED  from  her  secret  moorings. 

The  thin  and  silver  moon, 
Floats  wide  above  these  oceans 

Of  yellow  afternoon, — 
Who  slipped  her  fragile  cables, 

And  blew  to  sea  too  soon. 

She  bears  no  bales — but  wonder, 

Not  anything  of  note: 
How  should  she,  being  merely 

A  slender  petal-boat?   .    .    . 
But  rated  in  the  shipping: 

The  dearest  tramp  afloat. 


[4] 


A  GARDEN  WALL 

Roman  wall  was  not  more  grave  than 
this, 

That  has  no  league  at  all  with  great  affairs, 
That  knows  no  ruder  hands  than  clematis, 

No  louder  blasts  than  blowing  April  airs. 
Yet,  with  a  grey  solemnity  it  broods, 

Above  the  walk  where  simple  folk  go  past, 

And  in  its  crannies  keeps  their  transient  moods, 

Holding  their  careless  words  unto  the  last. 

The  rains  of  summer,  and  the  creeping  vine 
That  season  after  season  clings  in  trust, 

And  shivered  poppies  red  as  Roman  wine, — 
These  things  at  last  will  haunt  its  crumbled 
dust — 

Not  dreams  of  empires  shattered  where  they  lie, 

But  children's  laughter,  birds,  and  bits  of  sky. 


NAPOLEON  IN  HADES 

stirred  uneasily,  drew  close  their  capes, 
And    whispered   each    to    each    in    awed 

surprise, 

Seeing  this  figure  brood  along  the  shapes, 
World  tragedies  thick-crowding  through  his 

eyes. 
On  either  side  the  ghostly  groups  drew  back 

In  huddled  knots,  yielding  him  way  and  room, 
Their  foolish  mouths  agape  and  fallen  slack, 
Their  bloodless  fingers  pointing  through  the 
gloom. 

Still  lonely  and  magnificent  in  guilt, 

Splendid  in  scorn,  rapt  in  a  cloudy  dream, 

He  paused  at  last  upon  the  Stygian  silt, 

And    raised    calm    eyes    above    the    angry 
stream.   .    .    . 

Hand  in  his  breast,  he  stood  till  Charon  came, 

While  Hades  hummed  with  gossip  of  his  name. 


[6] 


SYMBOLS 

"OEAUTIFTJL  words,  like  butterflies,  blow  by, 
With  what  swift  colours  on  their  fragile 

wings ! — 
Some  that  are  less  articulate  than  a  sigh, 

Some   that    were    names    of    ancient,    lovely 

things. 
What  delicate  careerings  of  escape, 

When  they  would  pass  beyond  the   baffled 

reach, 

To  leave  a  haunting  shadow  and  a  shape, — 
Eluding  still  the  careful  traps  of  speech. 

And  I  who  watch  and  listen,  lie  in  wait, 
Seeing  the  cloudy  cavalcades  blow  past, — 

Happy  if  some  bright  vagrant,  soon  or  late, 
May  venture  near  the  snares  of  sound,  at  last — 

Most  fortunate  captor  if,  from  time  to  time, 

One  may  be  taken,  trembling,  in  a  rhyme. 


[7] 


EXILED 

CENSING  these  sweet  renewals   through  the 
earth, 

Where  seed  and  soil  most  happily  conspire 
To  furnish  forth  gay  rituals  of  mirth, 

Of  shaken  leaves  and  pointed  blooms  of  fire,— 
I  wonder  then  that  thoughtful  man,  alone, 

Walks  darkly  and  all  puzzled  with  a  doubt, 
Bewildered,  and  in  truth,  half-fearful  grown 

Of  wild,  wild  earth  and  April's  joyous  rout. 

When  we  are  dust  again  with  soil  and  seed, 
With   happy   earth   through   many   a  happy 

Spring, 

We  yet  may  learn  that  joy  was  all  our  need, — 
That  man's  long  thought  is  but  a  broken  wing, 
Of  less  account,  as  things  may  come  to  pass, 
Than  Spring's  first  robin  breasting  through  the 
grass. 


[8] 


MARY   SETS   THE   TABLE 

CHE  brings  such  gay  and  shining  things  to  pass, 
With  delicate,  deft  fingers  that  are  learned 
In  ways  of  silverware  and  cup  and  glass, 

Arrayed  in  ordered  patterns,  trimly  turned ; — 
And  never  guesses  how  this  subtle  ease 
Is  older  than  the  oldest  tale  we  tell, 
This  gift  that  guides  her  through  such  tricks  as 

these, 

And  my  delight  in  watching  her,  as  well. 

She  thinks  not  how  this  art  with  spoon  and  plate, 
Is  one  with  ancient  women  baking  bread  : 

An  epic  heritance  come  down  of  late 

To  slender  hands,  and  dear,  delightful  head,— 

How  Trojan  housewives  vie  in  serving  me, 

Where  Mary  sets  the  table  things  for  tea. 


[9] 


AUTUMN   TEA   TIME 

late  light  falls  across  the  floor, 
Turned  amber  from  a  yellow  tree, — 
And  there  are  yellow  cups  for  four, 
And  lemon  for  the  tea. 

The  maples,  with  a  million  flames, 

Have  lit  the  golden  afternoon, 
An  ambient  radiance  that  shames 

The  ineffective  moon.    .    .    . 

Till  dull  and  smoky  greys  return, 

Quenching  the  street  with  chills  and  damps — 
Leaving  these  asters  where  they  burn, 

Mellow  like  evening  lamps. 


[10] 


BATTLEFIELDS 

T  INTO  these  fields  of  torn  and  rutted  earth, 

These  hills  that  lift  their  many  a  naked 
scar, 

There  yet  shall  come  the  indomitable  mirth 
Of  Springs  that  have  remembered  where  they 

are. 
The  slow  processions  of  sweet  sun  and  rain 

Will  crown  the  changing  seasons  as  they  pass, 
With  healing  and  green  fruit  and  swollen  grain, 
And  banners  of  the  gay  and  dauntless  grass. 

Here  little  paths  will  find  their  way  again, 
And  here  the  patient  cattle  come  to  stand, 

Until,  grown  half -incredulous,  these  men 

Looking  from  doorways  on  the  evening  land, 

Can  scarcely  think — so  deep  the  quiet  lies — 

How  all  of  this  was  ever  otherwise. 


in] 


ONE   DAY   IN   AUTUMN 

YI/'ITH    all    our    going    through    this    golden 
weather, 

Where  leaves  have  littered  every  forest  way, 
If  there  be  lovers,  they  should  be  together: 

For  this  is  golden   .    .    .   but  the  end  is  grey. 
Beyond  this  shimmer  where  the  bright  leaves  fall, 

Behind  this  haze  of  silver  shot  with  gold, 
There  is  a  greyness  waiting  for  it  all, — 

A  little  longer   .    .    .   and  the  world  is  old. 

And  never  loneliness  grew  more  and  more, 
As  this  that  haunts  these  late  October  days, 

With  smoky  twilights  gathering  at  the  door, 
With  grey  mist  clouding  on  familiar  ways  .    .    . 

And  well  for  him  who  has  another  near, 

When  fires  are  lighted  for  the  dying  year. 


[12] 


AN   OLD   HOUSE   AND   GARDEN 

A  FTER  wet  twilights,  when  the  rain  is  done, 
I  think  they  walk  these  ways  that  knew 
their  feet, 

And  tread  these  sunken  pavements,  one  by  one, 
Keen  for  old  Summers  that  were  wild  and 

sweet ; 
Where  rainy  lilacs  blow  against  the  dark, 

And  grasses  bend  beneath  the  weight  they 

bare, 

The  night  grows  troubled,  and  we  still  may  mark 
Their  ghostly  heart-break  on  the  tender  air. 

Be  still !  We  cannot  know  what  trysts  they  keep, 
What  eager  hands  reach  vainly  for  a  door, 

Remembered  since  they  folded  them  in  sleep, — 
Frail  hands  that  lift  like  lilacs,  evermore, 

And  lean  along  the  darkness,  pale  and  still, 

To  touch  a  window  or  a  crumbling  sill. 


[13] 


IMMORTALIS 

A  LL  loved  and  lovely  women,  dear  to  rhyme : 
Thais,  Cassandra,  Helen  and  their  fames, 
Burn  like  tall  candles  through  forgotten  time, 

Lighting  the  Past's  dim  arras  with  their  names. 
Around  their  faces  wars  the  eager  dark, 

Wherein  all  other  lights  are  sunken  now; 
Yet,  casting  back,  the  seeker  still  may  mark 
A  flame  of  hair,  a  bright,  immortal  brow. 

Surely,  where  they  have  passed,  one  after  one, 
Wearing    their    radiance    to    the    darkened 
room, 

Surely,  new-comers  to  Oblivion 

May  still  descry,  in  that  all-quenching  gloom, 

Rare  faces,  lovely,  lifted  and  alight, 

Like  tapers  burning  through  the  windy  night. 


[14] 


TOURING 

of  Summer — I  have  seen 
World  on  world  of  summer  green- 
Summer  earth  and  summer  sky, 
Fields  of  summer  turning  by; 
Hills  beyond  us  fall  away, 
Tumbled  slopes  in  disarray, 
Fold  and  melt  into  a  plain: 
Fire  and  gold  of  summer  grain. 

Orchards  curving  on  a  hill, 
Heavy-fruited,  green  and  still, 
Heave  a  shoulder  to  the  sky, 
Bend  and  bow  and  hurry  by; 
Fields  of  clover  burn  and  pass, 
Cattle  knee-deep  in  the  grass 
Lift  a  lazy  head  and  look 
Pictures  in  a  picture-book.   .    .    . 
Corn  in  swift,  revolving  rows, 
Dripping  sunlight  where  it  goes, 
Wheels  and  glitters  and  returns: 
Bladed  beauty's  lifted  urns; 
Woods  all  shadowed,  cooling  earth, 
[15] 


TOURING 

Murmuring  of  a  quiet  mirth, 
Pour  damp  odours  where  they  pass, 
Breath  of  fern  and  earth  and  grass   .    .    . 
Ramblers  on  a  lichened  wall, 
Ramblers,  ramblers  pouring  all 
Colour  that  the  world  has  known 
Out  upon  an  aging  stone. — 
Little  towns  of  street  and  spire, 
Dooryard  roses,  heart's  desire, 
Light  a  dream  within  the  mind, 
Light  a  dream   .    .    .   and  fall  behind. 

God  of  mercies — when  I  slept, 
World  on  world  of  summer  kept 
Turning,  turning  softly  by,— 
Summer  earth  and  summer  sky : 
Fields  of  summer  that  will  be 
Summer  always  unto  me— 
Never  lost,  not  left  behind: 
Always  summer  for  my  mind. 


[16] 


SUMMER 

IpROM  what  lost  centuries  that  were  sweet 

before, 
Comes  this  long  wave  of  Summer,  bursting 

white 
In  shivered  apple-blossoms  on  the  shore 

That  is  our  homeland  for  a  day  and  night ! 
A  wide,  hushed  spirit  floats  above  the  foam, 

A  sweetness  that  was  ancient  flower  and  face, 
When   wine-red    poppies   stained   the   walls   of 

Rome, 

And   daisies   starred   those  summer  fields  of 
Thrace. 

Something  survives  and  haunts  the  leafy  shade, 
Some  fragrance  that  was  petals,  once,  and 
lips, 

And  whispered,  brief  avowals  that  they  made, — 
Borne  hither,  now,  in  vague,  invisible  ships, 

Whose  weightless  cargoes,  poured  upon  the  air, 

Are  flowers  forgot,  and  faces  that  were  fair. 


[17] 


OLD   SHIPS 

rf^HERE  is  a  memory  stays  upon  old  ships, 

A  weightless  cargo  in  the  musty  hold, — 
Of  bright  lagoons  and  prow-caressing  lips, 

Of  stormy  midnights, — and  a  tale  untold. 
They  have  remembered  islands  in  the  dawn, 

And  windy  capes  that  tried  their  slender  spars, 
The  tortuous  channels  where  their  keels  have 

gone, 
And  calm,  blue  nights  of  stillness  and  the  stars. 

Ah,  never  think  that  ships  forget  a  shore, 

Or  bitter  seas,  or  winds  that  made  them  wise; 

There  is  a  dream  upon  them,  evermore; — 
And  there  be  some  who  say  that  sunk  ships 
rise 

To  seek  familiar  harbours  in  the  night, 

Blowing  in  mists,  their  spectral  sails  like  light. 


[18] 


THE  TOWN 

(For  Morristown,  N.  J.) 
I 

TV/TEN  loved  not  Athens  in  her  maiden  days 
More  tenderly  than  these  their  tree-lined 

Town 
Which,  lacking  Muses  for  a  wider  praise, 

Lives  in  their  hearts  in  still  and  sweet  renown. 
The  market  square,  the  wagons  in  the  dawn, 
The  streets  like  music  when  their  names  are 

said, 
The    Sunday    spire,    the    green,    untrammelled 

lawn, — 

These  be  the  things  on  which  their  hearts  are 
fed. 

And  one  long  street  climbs  slowly  to  a  hill 
That  lifts  her  crosses  for  the  Town  to  see 

How  sleep  those  quiet  neighbours,  townsmen  still, 
How  there  is  peace  for  such  as  weary  be  ... 

And  as  they  come,  each  like  a  sleepy  guest, 

She  takes  them,  one  by  one,  and  gives  them  rest. 
[19] 


THE  TOWN 
II 

SUNDAY   MORNING 

A  thoughtful  quiet  lies  upon  the  street, 

There  is  a  hushed  suspension  on  the  air, 
And  the  slow  bells  summon  unhurried  feet 

To  dim  reclosures  kept  for  praise  and  prayer. 
Drawn  blinds  have  shut  the  merchant's  wares 
away, 

Where  two  by  two  the  goodly  folk  go  by, 
Out  of  their  toilsome  days  into  this  day 

Of  special  airs  beneath  a  special  sky. 

A  little  while,  and  all  at  last  are  gone; 

The  streets  are  stilled  of  passers  up  and  down; 
Only  the  pealing  bells  toll  on  and  on, — 

Till  these,  too,  cease,  and  all  the  silent  Town, 
In  street,  and  roof,  and  spire,  and  grassy  sod, 
Lies  steeped  in  sunlight,  smiling  back  at  God. 

Ill 

IN    APRIL 

The  way  of  Spring  with  little  steepled  towns 

Is  such  a  shy,  transforming  sorcery 
Of  special  lights  and  swift,  incredible  crowns, 
That  grave  men  wonder  how  such  things  may 
be. 

[20] 


THE  TOWN 

No  friendly  spire,  no  daily-trodden  way 
But  somehow  alters  in  the  April  air, 

Grown  dearer  still,  on  some  enchanted  day, 
For  shining  garments  they  have  come  to  wear. 

The  way  the  spring  comes  to  our  Town  is  such 
That  something  quickens  in  the  hearts  of  men, 

Turning  them  lovers  at  its  subtle  touch, 

Till  they  must  lift  their  heads  again — again— 

As  lovers  do,  with  frank,  adoring  eyes, 

Where  the  long  street  of  lifted  steeples  lies. 

IV 

WATCHERS 

I  think  those  townsmen,  sleeping  on  the  hill, 
Are  never  careless  how  the  Town  may  fare, 
But  jealous  of  her  quiet  beauty  still, 

Her  ways  and  worth  are  things  for  which  they 

care: 
For   shuttered   house,    and   gateways   and   the 

grass, 
And  how  the  streets,  tree-bordered  all  and 

cool, 
Are  still  a  pleasant  way  for  folks  to  pass : 

Men  at  their  work  and  children  home  from 
school. 

[21] 


THE  TOWN 

I  cannot  doubt  that  they  are  pleased  to  see 
Their  planted  elms  grown  dearer  year  by  year : 

Their  living  witness  unto  such  as  we  .  .  . 
And  they  are  less  regretful  when  they  hear 

Some  name  we  speak,  some  tale  we  tell  again, 

Of  days  when  they  were  warm  and  living  men. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

These  morning  streets,  the  lawns  of  windy  grass, 

And  spires  that  wear  the  sunlight  like  a  crown, 
The  square  where  busy,  happy  people  pass : 

The  living  soul  that  lights  the  little  Town, — 
These  have  been  shining  beauty  for  my  mind, 

And  joy,  and  friendship,  and  a  tale  to  tell, 
And  these  have  been  a  presence  that  is  kind, 

A  quiet  music  and  a  healing  well. 

Men  who  were  lovers  in  the  olden  time, 

Who  praised  the  beauty  of  bright  hair  and 

brow, 
And  left  a  little  monument  of  rhyme, — 

Wrought  not  more  tenderly  than   I  would, 

now, 

To  turn  some  changing  syllables  of  praise 
For  her  whose  quiet  beauty  fills  my  days. 
[22] 


THE  TOWN 
VI 

THE   TOWNSMAN 

Here  would  I  leave  some  subtle  part  of  me, 

A  moving  presence  through  the  friendly  Town, 
Abiding  still,  and  happy  still  to  be 

Where  thoughtful    men    pass    daily  up  and 

down; — 
An  essence  stirring  on  the  ways  they  fare, 

Haunting  the  drifted  sunlight  where  they  go, 
Till  one  might  mark  a  Something  on  the  air, 

Most  near  and  kind — though  why,  he  would 
not  know. 

Happy,  if  it  may  chance,  where  two  shall  meet, 
Pausing  to  pass  the  friendly,  idle  word, 

In  the  hushed  twilight  of  the  evening  street, 
I  might  stand  by,  a  secret,  silent  Third, — 

Most  happy  listener,  if  I  hear  them  tell 

How,  with  the  Town — and  them — it  still  is  well. 


[23] 


AFTER  SUMMER  RAIN 

A  LL  day  the  rain  has  filled  the  apple-trees, 
And   stilled   the   orchard    grasses   of    their 

mirth, 
Turning  these  acres  green  and  silvered  seas 

That  drowned  the  summer  musics  of  the  earth. 
Now  that  this  clearer  twilight  takes  the  hill, 

This  thin,  belated  radiance,  moving  by, 
Bird-calls  return,  and  odours,  rainy  still, 

And  colours  glinting  through  the  earth  and 
sky. 

Here  where  I  watch  the  robins  from  the  lane, 
That  pirouette  and  preen  among  the  leaves, 

These  swift,  wet-winged  arrivals  in  the  rain 
Have  spilled  a  wisdom  from  their  dripping 
eaves, — 

And  beauty  still  is  more  than  daily  bread, 

For  fevered  minds,  and  hearts  discomforted. 


[24] 


THE  KINGS  ARE  PASSING  DEATHWARD 


Kings  are  passing  deathward  in  the  dark 
Of   days   that    had   been   splendid   where 

they  went; 
Their  crowns  are  captive  and  their  courts  are 

stark 

Of  purples  that  are  ruinous,  now,  and  rent. 
For  all  that  they  have  seen  disastrous  things: 
The  shattered   pomp,   the   split   and   shaken 

throne, 

They  cannot  quite  forget  the  way  of  Kings  : 
Gravely  they  pass,  majestic  and  alone. 

With  thunder  on  their  brows,  their  faces  set 
Toward  the  eternal  night  of  restless  shapes, 

They  walk  in  awful  splendour,  regal  yet, 

Wearing   their   crimes   like   rich    and   kingly 
capes.    .    .    . 

Curse  them  or  taunt,  they  will  not  hear  or  see: 

The  Kings  are  passing  deathward:  let  them  be. 


[25] 


RENEWAL 

CTRANGE  that  this  body  in  its  lifted  state 
Of  independent  will  and  power  and  lust, 
Should  still  attest  that  kinship,  dimmed  of  late, 

Its  ancient,  honoured  brotherhood  with  dust; — 
So  that  when  Spring  is  quickening  in  the  clay, 

Stirring  dumb  particles  the  way  she  fares, 
This  foolish  flesh  is  no  less  moved  than  they, 

To  sweet,  unreasoned  happiness,  like  theirs. 

Not  seed  and  soil  alone,  but  heart  and  mind 
Are  somehow  swayed,  till  sober,  earnest  men, 

In  quick  renewal  with  their  dusty  kind, 

Grow  foolish-fond,  like  lads  at  play  again.  .  .  . 

So  April,  stirring  blindly  through  the  earth, 

Can  move  us  to  a  blind,  unthinking  mirth. 


[26] 


RESPONDIT 

A  PPLE-TREE,  apple-tree,  what  is  it  worth: 

^^     Beauty  and  passion  and  red-lipped  mirth, 
Fashioned  of  fire  and  the  blossoming  earth, — 
Gone  in  a  transient  spring? 

Spending  and  spilling  your  wealth  through  the 

grass, 

Coiner  of  coins  that  must  rust  and  pass, — 
Knowing  the  end  is — alas,  and  alas! 
What  may  a  poet  sing? 

"  Sing  of  the  dust  that  is  blossomy  boughs, 
Dust  that  is  more  than  your  thought  allows; 
Sing  you  for  ever  impossible  vows 
Unto  the  springs  to  be. 

"  Dust  in  the  dust  is  for  fire  and  birth, 
Beauty  and  passion  and  red-lipped  mirth, 
Fashioned  of  dust  for  the  blossoming  earth, — 
Even  of  you  and  me." 


[27] 


JEWELS 

sea  has  worn  her  ships  like  precious  stones, 
That  marked  her  bosom's  tremulous  un 
rest; 
And  for  their  loss  no  pendant  moon  atones 

That  rides  eternally  upon  her  breast. 
For  sunk  armadas  or  a  little  boat 

She  still  is  wistful  as  a  jewelled  queen, 
Who  bears  the  burning  memory  at  her  throat, 
Of  barque  and  sloop  and  brilliant  brigantine. 

The  epic  chanted  to  each  sounding  cave 

Is  all  of  fleets  gone  down  by  lonely  shores, — 

The  shining  spars,  the  sails,  the  light  they  gave, 
Now  scattered  darkly  on  her  grievous  floors; — 

And  all  the  sea's  long  moan  is  like  a  sigh 

For  ruined  ships  remembered  where  they  lie. 


[28] 


CHORUS 

A  LWAYS  it  was  the  old  songs  moved  us  most, 

For  always  there  were  other  voices  near, 
A  silver  singing  threading  like  a  ghost, 

A  thinner  music  than  our  ears  could  hear; 
So  that  we  sang  more  softly  than  we  might, 
As  leaving  room  for  some  expected  tone; 
Our  singing  was  half  listening  in  the  night, 
For  other  singing  drowned  along  our  own, 

And  always  there  was  silence  at  the  end, 

For   something    that    beguiled    us    with    the 

thought 
Of  presences  returning,  friend  to  friend. 

Seeking  again  the  fellowship  they  sought, 
Pleased  that  we  sing  old  songs  they  still  may 

know, 
Who  sang  with  us,  or  listened,  long  ago. 


[29] 


SYMBOL 

\/f  Y  faith  is  all  a  doubtful  thing, 

Wove  on  a  doubtful  loom, — 
Until  there  comes,  each  showery  Spring, 
A  cherry-tree  in  bloom; 

And  Christ  who  died  upon  a  tree 
That  death  had  stricken  bare, 

Comes  beautifully  back  to  me, 
In  blossoms,  everywhere. 


[30] 


TO  AN  UNKNOWN   ANCESTOR 

A  MONO  the  goodly  folk  whose  name  I  bear, 
"^         Men  of  the  plough,  the  priesthood,  and 

the  mill, 

Whose  whispered  wisdom  follows  where  I  fare, 
With  ghostly  promptings  that  must  haunt  me 

still,— 
What  place  was  there  for  you,  whose  different 

fame 

Delighted,  once,  the  Don  Juans  of  the  town? 
The  family  annals  have  forgot  your  name, 
And  time  at  last  has  hushed  your  gay  renown. 

But  often  in  the  chamber  of  my  mind, 
The  righteous  rise  and  leave,  their  counsels 
done, 

And  there  is  counsel  of  another  kind, — 

The  room  turns  tavern,  and  there  enters  one 

I  pledge  as  kinsman  in  a  reeling  toast, 

Still  unregenerate  and  delightful  ghost. 


[31] 


INTIMATION 

TJ"  ERE  where  the  sunlight  makes  more  strangely 

fair 
Each   shining   street,   each   steeple   where   it 

stands, 

Something  like  Spring  is  blowing  down  the  air, 
Touching  the  Town  with  light,  transforming 

hands. 
Half -shy  and  hesitant,  a  Something  stays 

One    trembling    instant    where    the    sun    is 

sweet, — 

A  quickening  presence  on  these  winter  ways, 
Haunting  and  swift — and  gone  on  shining  feet. 

Yet,  there  was  hint  of  coming  daffodils, 
And  slender  spears  uprising  on  the  lawn, 

And  apple-blossoms  on  the  April  hills   .    .    . 
Only  the  timid  prophetess  was  gone, 

Leaving  a  faith  as  gallant  as  the  grass, 

How  that  these  things  would  surely  come  to 
pass. 


[32J 


ON  A  DEAD   MOTH 

"VVfHO  knows  what  trouble  trembled  in  that 
throat, 

What  sweet  distraction  for  the  summer  moon, 
That  lured  you  out,  a  frail,  careering  boat, 

Across  the  midnight's  purple,  deep  lagoon! 
Some  fire  of  madness  lit  that  tiny  brain, 

Some  soft  propulsion    clouded  through  your 

breast, 
And  lifted  you,  a  white  and  moving  stain 

Against  the  dark  of  that  disastrous  quest. 

The  sadness  of  all  brief  and  lovely  things, 
The  fine  and  futile  passions  that  we  bear, 

Haunt   the   bright   wreck   of   your   too    fragile 

wings, 
And  win  a  pity  for  you,  ended  there, — 

Like  us,  hurled  backward  to  the  final  shade, 

From  mad  adventures  for  a  moon  or  maid. 


[33] 


MYSTIC 

Something  glimpsed  upon  the  topmost 
hill, 

For  Something  glinting  down  a  country  lane, 
Where  apple-blossoms  shimmer  white  and  spill 

A  ghostly  shower  close  along  the  rain, — 
For  Something  guessed  beyond  the  hedge  or  tree, 

Hinted  and  hid  behind  the  evening  star, 
I  am  made  captive  and  am  never  free 

Of  Something  that  is  neither  near  nor  far. 

A  waking  through  the  windy  shapes  of  grass, 
A  trembling  as  of  light  along  a  bough, — 

These  are  for  footprints  and  a  way  to  pass, 
To  follow  after  and  to  make  a  vow, — 

To  seek  past  glamours  that  are  hourly  spent, 

And  find  but  fainting  lights  down  ways  she 
went. 


[34] 


LEVIATHANS 

who  have   seen  the  foam  upon  bright 
wrecks 

Of  stately  ships  that  never  come  to  port, 
Where  sea-things  crawl  upon  those  sunken  decks, 
And  fishes  through  those  cabins  take  their 

sport, 

There  where  at  last  the  gilded,  gay  saloon 

Turns  watery  cavern  for  the  spawn  of  seas, 
And  spars,  once  splendid,  rot  beneath  the  moon 
That  once  was  glad  to  sail  with  such  as  these, — 

Let  never  word  of  pity  pass  your  lips: 

For  these  were  proud  in  ways  you  cannot 

know, 
And  pride  is  slow  to  die  in  ruined  ships 

Who  can  but  dream  that  some  day  they  will  go, 
Their  wounds  all  healed,  their  clean  strength 

whole  again, 
Monarch  of  seas,  marvel  of  moons  and  men. 


[35] 


INVIOLATE 

F  WOULD  be  dumb  before  the  evening  star, 
And  no  light  word  should  stir  upon  my 

lips 
For  autumn  dusks  where  dying  embers  are, 

For  evening  seas  and  slow,  returning  ships. 
I  would  be  hushed  before  the  face  I  love, 
Rising  in  star-like  quiet  close  to  mine, 
Lest  all  the  beauty  thought  is  dreaming  of 
Be  rudely  shaken  and  be  spilled  like  wine. 

For  present  loveliness  there  is  no  speech, 
A  word  may  wrong  a  flower  or  a  face, 

And  stars  that  swim  beyond  our  stuttering  reach 
Are  safer  in  some  golden,  silent  place.    .    .    . 

Only  when  these  are  broken,  or  pass  by, 

Wonder    and    worship    speak   ...     or     sing 
...   or  cry. 


[36] 


MANUSCRIPTS 

A  S  some  monastic  scrivener  in  his  cell, 

Sensing  a  chill  along  the  stony  crypt, 
Might  labour  yet  more  gorgeously  to  spell 

The  final,  splendid  entries  of  his  script, — 
So  with  bright  rubrics  has  the  Autumn  writ 

A  coloured  chronicle  of  things  that  pass, 
Thumbing  a  yellow  parchment  that  is  lit 

With  brief,  illumined  letters  through  the  grass. 

With  what  a  prodigality  of  stains, 

Is  fashioned  this  last  entry  and  design, 

By  one  aware  of  cold,  approaching  rains, — 
Who  senses,  through  each  iridescent  line, 

A  presence  at  the  shoulder — chills  and  blights, 

Winds  that  will  snuff  his  letters  out  like  lights. 


137] 


IN  AN   OLD   BURIAL   GROUND 

T  HAVE  imagined   .    .    .   but  I  have  not  known 
What  swift,  recaptured  seasons,  lost  of 
late, 

What  long-regretted  Aprils  yet  may  wait 
For  each  of  these  beyond  his  crypted  stone. 
Some  Springtime  that  was  all  too  quickly  blown, 
Some  Summer  that  was  roses  in  his  heart, 
May  wake  again  in  every  sweetest  part, 
And  show  themselves  familiarly  his  own. 

It  well  may  be  there  are  eternal  days 

For  every  frailest  thing,  beyond  this  door, 
Where  roses  are  not  ruined  any  more, 

And  April  with  her  jonquils  stays  and  stays, 
Outlingering  walls  of  granite  where  they  blow 

I  have  imagined   .    .    .   but  I  do  not  know. 


[38] 


ENCORE 

old  slow  music  will  have  never  done 
With  dancers  who  were  graceful  long  ago; 
A  sigh  returns  them,  one  by  ghostly  one, 

To  tunes  and  measures  that  they  knew — and 

know. 
These  lifted  faces,  floating  on  a  stream, 

Are  one  with  other  faces  that  were  fair, — 
That  once  were  light,and  summertime  and  dream, 
And  drifted  laughter  over  hall  and  stair. 

The  viols  end,  and  two  by  two  they  pass 
Out  of  this  blaze  into  the  leafy  dark, 

Too  ghostly  and  too  dim  across  the  grass, 

Too  soon  obscured  and  blotted,  all, — till  Hark! 

This  old,  slow  music  that  is  like  a  sigh 

For  silver  feet  gone,  ah,  how  lightly  by. 


[39] 


REDEMPTION 

old  gods  wait  where  secret  beauty  stirs, 
By  green,  untempled  altars  of  the  Spring, 
If  haply,  still,  there  be  some  worshippers 

Whose  hearts  are  moved  with  long  remember 
ing. 
The  cloven  feet  of  Pan  are  on  the  hill, 

His  reedy  musics  sadder  than  all  rains, 

Since  none  will  seek — pipe  ever  as  he  will — 

Those  unanointed  and  neglected  fanes. 

Beauty  and  joy — the  bread  and  wine  and  all — 
We  have  foresworn;  our  noisy  hearts  forget; 

We  stray  and  on  strange  altars  cry  and  call   .    .    . 
Ah,  patient  gods,  be  patient  with  us  yet, 

And  Pan,  pipe  on,  pipe  on,  till  we  shall  rise, 

And  follow,  and  be  happy,  and  be  wise. 


[40] 


THE   HUNTED 

is  no  rest  for  them,  even  in  Death: 
As  life  had  harried  them  from  lair  to  lair, 
Still  with  unquiet  eyes  and  furtive  breath, 

They  haunt  the  secret  by-ways  of  the  air. 
They  know  Earth's  outer  regions  like  a  street, 
And  on  pale  ships  that  make  no  port  of  call, 
They  pass  in  silence  when  they  chance  to   meet, 
Saying  no  names,  telling  no  tales  at  all. 

Yet,  on  November  nights  of  wind  and  storm, 
Shivered  and  driven  from  their  ghostly  shores, 

They  peer  in  lighted  windows  glowing  warm, 
And     thrill     again     at     dear,     remembered 
doors — 

But  they  are  wary  listeners  in  the  night : 

Speak  but  a  name,  and  they  are  off  in  flight. 


[41] 


THE  SCHOOL  BOY  READS  HIS  ILIAD 


sounding  battles  leave  him  nodding  still  : 
The  din  of  javelins  at  the  distant  wall 
Is  far  too  faint  to  wake  that  weary  will 

That  all  but  sleeps  for  cities  where  they  fall. 
He  cares  not  if  this  Helen's  face  were  fair, 

Nor  if  the  thousand  ships  shall  go  or  stay; 
In  vain  the  rumbling  chariots  throng  the  air 
With  sounds  the  centuries  shall  not  hush  away. 

Beyond  the  window  where  the  Spring  is  new, 
Are  marbles  in  a  square,  and  tops  again, 

And  floating  voices  tell  him  what  they  do, 
Luring  his  thought  from  these  long-warring 
men,  - 

And  though  the  camp  be  visited  with  gods, 

He  dreams  of  marbles  and  of  tops,  and  nods. 


[42] 


MOMENTS 

has  been  splendid    in  her  changing 
moods, 
Whose  scattered   glories   mark   the   moment 

spent; 
Reliques  of  mirth  or  thoughtful  solitudes 

Betoken  what  a  Christ  or  Dante  meant. 
What  smiling  dream,  what  happy,  happy  hour 

Yielded  an  Athens  for  the  bride  of  Time ! 
What  darker  reverie  wrought  the  Roman  flower 
Whose  crimson  petals  stained  the  grass  with 
crime ! 

Mood  after  mood,  its  subtle  secret  hid, 
Plies  in  the  earth  and  has  its  moody  way, 

Patient  or  swift — to  build  a  pyramid, 

Or  strike  a  Phidias  from  the  quickened  clay 

A  reverie,  that  is  cities  on  a  hill, 
Or  laughter  trembling  in  a  daffodil. 


[43] 


CLEAR   MORNING 

air  is  full  of  thin  and  blowing  bells 
Whose  delicate,  faint  music  breaks  and 
swells 


For  every  lightest  wind,  and  dies  unheard, 
Unless  it  be  by  some  leaf  -hidden  bird, 

Or  some  shy  faun  who  listens  in  the  reeds, 
If  haply  there  be  tunes  to  suit  his  needs. 


[44] 


RENAISSANCE 

T^HIS  glittering   sense   of  bright  and  bladed 
grass, 

Of  hedges  topped  with   blossom,   white  like 

foam, 
And  moons  that  know  a  purple  way  to  pass, — 

This  beauty  that  the  mind  has  taken  home — 
Goes  never  wholly  from  us  at  the  last, 

But  stays  beyond  each  summer's  slow  decay, 
Storing  our  thought  with  summers  that  are  past : 

Hedges  and  moons,  white  in  their  ancient  way. 

So,  in  some  subtle  instant,  for  their  sake, 
The  winter  world  turns  summer  earth  and  sky : 
Blossom  and  bird  and  musics  in  their  wake  .    .    . 

And  one  bright  moment,  ere  it  hurries  by, 
Throngs  all  the  mind  with   colour,   light   and 

mirth, 

Like     summertimes     returning     through     the 
earth. 


[45] 


AN  OLD   LOVER 

TI/'HENEVER  he  would  talk  to  us  of  ships, 

Old  schooners  lost,  or  tall  ships  under 
weigh, 

The  god  of  speech  was  neighbour  to  his  lips, 
A  lover's  grace  on  words  he  loved  to  say. 
He  called  them  by  their  names,  and  you  could  see 
Spars  in  the  sun,  keels,  and  their  curling  foam; 
And  all  his  mind  was  like  a  morning  quay 
Of  ships  gone  out,  and  ships  come  gladly  home. 

He  filled  the  bay  with  sails  we  had  not  seen: 
The  Marguerita  L.,  "a  maid  for  shape," 

The  slender  Kay,  the  worthy  Island  Queen, — 
That  was  his  own,  he  lost  her  off  the  Cape, 

"She  was  a  ship" — and  then  he  looked  away, 

And  talked  to  us  no  more  of  ships  that  day. 


[46] 


ONE  DAY  IN  SUMMER 

singing  Summertime  has  never  done 
With  afternoons  all  gold  and  dust  and 
fire, 
And  windy  trees  blown  silver  in  the  suit, 

The  lights  of  earth,  her  musics  and  desire; — 
But  day  by  day,  and  hour  by  lighted  hour, 

Something  beyond  the  summer  earth  and  sky, 
Burns  through  this  passion  of  a  world  in  flower, — 
Some  ghostly  sense  of  lovers  thronging  by. 

And  I  have  thought,  upon  this  windy  hill, 

Where   bends   and   sways   the   long,    dream- 
troubled  grass, 

That  I  may  know  the  heart-beats,  tender  still, 
Of  gone,  forgotten  lovers  where  they  pass, — 
Their  love,  too  long  for  one  brief  life  to  hold, 
Beating   and   burning   through   this   dust   and 
gold. 


[47] 


VINES 

TVTO  hint  was  told  to  these  untutored  seed: 

Along  the  mould  wherein  their  roots  are 
curled, 
No  whisper  runs  of  station,  caste  or  creed, 

To  guide  their  tendrils  through  a  jealous  world. 
From  palace  wall  or  cottage  door,  these  blooms, 

In  careless  disarray  of  white  and  red, 
Will  peer  through  open  windows  into  rooms 
Where  princes  sit,  or  women  kneading  bread. 

Along  these  tender  twilights  where  they  lean, 
They  send  no  whispered  gossip  down  at  all, 

Of  cradle  songs,  or  counsels  of  a  queen, 
To  roots  indifferent  if  that  upper  wall 

Be  loud  with  battles  and  the  clash  of  Kings, 

Or  quiet,  where  a  mother  sits  and  sings. 


[48] 


AUDIENCE 

T   AM  aware  of  crowds  behind  the  night, 
Of  eager  faces  just  beyond  our  eyes, 
Immured  in  silences  and  lost  to  light, 

Piteous  and  pleading  with  a  hurt  surprise 
That  we  who  live  will  never  turn  a  head 

To  speak  them  any  answer,  or  to  hark 
The  pregnant  whispered  wisdom  of  the  Dead, 

The  futile  finger  pointed  in  the  Dark. 


[49] 


THE  DANCE 

YE/HEN  we  had  gone  from  out  the  blazing 
room, 

Into  the  cool  and  leafy  dark,  at  last, 
And  found  a  sweetness  in  the  summer  gloom, 

A  holy  quiet  on  the  ways  we  passed, — 
We  turned,  with  only  half -regretful  glance 

At  silhouettes  beyond  that  square  of  light, — 
Content  to  leave  the  laughter  and  the  dance, 

For  green,  cool  chambers  of  the  summer  night. 

I  think  that  we  shall  not  be  otherwise, 

When  we  have  quit  all  rooms  where  once  we 
went, — 

But  gazing  back  with  grave,  untroubled  eyes, 
Shall  find  ourselves  so  quietly  content, 

We  shall  not  wish  to  alter  that  estate, 

Nor  seek  again  the  dance  we  left  of  late. 


[50] 


ON  HEARING  A  BIRD  SING  AT  NIGHT 


of  what  ancient  summer  of  soft  airs 
Was  spun  this  song  that  stills  each  lis 
tening  leaf  — 

This  silver,  moon-bright  minstreling  that  fares 
Through  all  old  time,  still  laden  with  a  grief? 
Some  hidden  bird,  by  turrets  and  black  bars, 
Where  one  had  languished  for  her  face  was 

fair, 

Heard  thus  some  troubadour  beneath  the  stars, 
And  learned  this  song  of  vanished  hands  and 
hair. 

Who  knows  what  golden  story  first  gave  birth 
To  this  old  music  that  is  heavy-sweet 

With  gardens  long  forgotten  of  the  earth, 
With  passion  that  was  silver  wings  and  feet, 

To  cross  the  silent  centuries  and  be  heard, 

Calling  again  in  this  dream-troubled  bird! 


[51] 


DAWN 

thousand  muffled  noises  of  the  dawn: 
The  drowsy  stir  of  birds,  surprised  from 
sleep, 
The  faint  applause  of  leaves  above  the  lawn, 

The  bleat,  far  off,  of  closely-cabined  sheep, — 
Are  like  dim  perfumes  blowing  down  the  stairs, 

All  sweetly  prescient  of  the  coming  day,—- 
And  less  like  sounds,  than  little  tender  airs 
Gone  softly  shod  and  happily  astray. 

The  later  sleepers,  where  the  garden  lies, 
Such  heavy-lidded  ladies  as  the  rose, 

Hear  the  soft  tumult  with  a  dim  surprise, 
There,   where  an  early  wind  as  roundsman 
goes, 

To  rouse  each  languid,  over-sleepy  head, 

And  shame  them  that  they  lie  so  long  abed. 


[52] 


DAFFODILS   OVER  NIGHT 

(A  Short  Tale  for  Children) 

T  THINK  the  ghost  of  Leerie 

Came  by  with  ghostly  treacL 
And  little  lighted  tapers, 

When  we  had  gone  to  bed,— 
Past  gravel-walk  and  garden, 

As  he  was  wont  to  go, 
And  lit  these  yellow  lanterns, 

Burning  where  thy  blow. 


[53] 


VALUES 

TT  moves  my  heart  but  little  to  suppose 

That  planted  men,  like  planted  seed,  shall 
rise, 
That  faulty  dust  re-blossoms  as  the  rose, 

In  new  perfections  for  more  perfect  skies; 
Nor  should  I  greatly  care  if  one  who  knew 

Should  tell  that  out  beyond  the  Grievous  Gate, 
The  sleepy  country  that  we  travel  to, 
Has  never  any  waking,  soon  or  late. 

But  what  if  I  should  hear  a  prophet  say : 

Next  year  will  bring  no  robins  round  the  door, 

And  April  will  not  have  her  ancient  way, 
The  hedge  will  bear  no  blossoms  any  more, 

The  earth  will  not  be  green  for  living  men,— 

For     Spring     will     not     pass     by     this     way 
again!   .    .    . 


[54] 


A  GHOST  OUT  OF  STRATFORD 

all  the  crowd  that  packed  the  house  to 
night, 
Marked  you  the  vacant  seat  none  came  to 

claim,   .    .    . 
The  fourth   row  from   the   front,   and   to   the 

right?   .    .    . 

Vacant,  I  call  it  now.   .    .    .    But  I  could  name 

A  thing  that  happened  when  the  lights  were  off, 

Of  one  who  walked  in  buckles  down  the  aisle, 

Wearing  a  great  hat  that  he  scorned  to  doff, 

And  richly  kerchiefed,  wrist  and  neck  in  style. 

Once  in  the  play — I  swear  it — once  I  heard, 

Along  the  tumult  of  our  loud  applause, 
A  sly  and  ghostly  chuckle  at  a  word 

That  Falstaff  mouthed  with  those  outrageous 

jaws  .    .    . 
I  think  he  liked  the  play   .    .    .   and  stayed,  no 

doubt, 
Long  after  us,  and  lingered  going  out. 


[55] 


WHO   WALKS   WITH   BEAUTY 

TV/'HO  walks  with  Beauty  has  no  need  of  fear: 
The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  keep  pace 
with  him; 
Invisible  hands  restore  the  ruined  year, 

And  time  itself  grows  beautifully  dim. 
One  hill  will  keep  the  footprints  of  the  moon 

That  came  and  went  a  hushed  and  secret  hour; 
One  star  at  dusk  will  yield  the  lasting  boon: 
Remembered  beauty's  white,  immortal  flower. 

Who  takes  of  Beauty  wine  and  daily  bread, 
Will  know  no  lack  when  bitter  years  are  lean ; 

The  brimming  cup  is  by,  the  feast  is  spread; 
The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  his  eyes  have  seen, 

Are  for  his  hunger  and  the  thirst  he  slakes : 

The  wine  of  Beauty  and  the  bread  he  breaks. 


[56] 


RACONTEUR 

HPHE  Earth  remembers  many,  many  things, 

Kept  of  her  pride,  a  rich  and  ancient 
lore, — 
The  fading  footprints  of  her  transient  Springs, 

Her  nameless  cities,  and  the  stones  they  wore. 
Anointed  shrines  that  men  had  perished  for, 

And  women  who  were  music  for  their  times, 
These,  and  the  world's  long  iliads  of  war, 

Will  haunt  her  heart  like  dear,  remembered 
rhymes. 

I  have  imagined  how  it  might  be  so, 

When  Earth  takes  home  this  wandering  dust 
again, 

There  may  be  stories  I  shall  come  to  know, 
Of  tragic  queens  and  towns  and  valiant  men, — 

Old  honoured  tales  that  Earth  may  tell  to  me, 

As  mothers  do,  for  children  at  the  knee. 


[57] 


AFFINITIES 

girls  love  a  slender  birch, 
Tall  and  blowing  in  the  wind, 
Silvered  in  the  sun  and  rain, 
And  beautifully  thinned. 

Old  men  love  an  apple-tree 
Twisted  and  gnarled  as  they; 

But  when  new  blossoms  line  the  bough, 
The  old  men  look  away. 


[58] 


TRANSFIGURATION 

"VI/'HAT  old  historic  dust  gives  back  the  rose! 
What  crumbled  empires  yield  the  creep 
ing  vine! 
And  purple  grapes  have   sucked  a  pleasant 

wine 

From  ramparts  that  had  bowed  to  sudden  blows. 
Where  now  the  unregarded  river  flows, 
Old  dissolute  cities,  their  debauches  done, 
Lift  up  a  slender  blossom  to  the  sun, 
Steeped  in  the  thoughtful  silence  where  it  grows. 

Where  Splendour  was,  no  Splendour  is  today : 
Ruin  has  wrought  upon  the  crowns  of  kings, 
Their  throne-rooms  all  are  green  and  tender 
things   .    .    . 

And  wonder  dies, — save  in  the  patient  way 
Of  these  slow  transmutations  in  the  dust : 
Beauty  from  power,  lilies  out  of  lust. 


[59] 


ONE  WAY  OF  SPRING 

Spring  came  to  this  street  with  spinning 
tops, 
And  marbles  rolling  where  the  yards  were 

bare, 
With  parti-coloured  bonnets  in  the  shops, 

And  young  girls'  laughter  on  the  sterile  air. 
Through  open  windows  and  from  stair  to  stair, 

Went  women's  voices,  calling  each  to  each, 
And  in  the  cramped  and  crowded  little  square, 
The  ancient  hush  of  soft  and  tender  speech. 

For  all  the  lack  of  green  things  coming  in, 
That  magic  that  was  marbles  in  the  street, 

That  swept  the  stairs,  and  moved  the  tops  to 

spin, 
Was  wine  and  music,  potent  still  and  sweet, 

As  when  it  swayed  those  graceful  girls  of  Troy, 

And  set  to  dreaming  many  a  Trojan  boy. 


[60] 


FOR   A   SEQUESTERED    LADY 

T)  OSES,  roses  at  her  door, 

Roses  bringing  something  more 
Than  one  Summer  to  her  door, — 
Beauty,  beauty  evermore. 

Roses  that  were  Guinivere 

In  a  far-off  golden  year, 

Hair  that  blinded  like  the  sun, 

Hands  that  never  would  have  done 

With  the  white  spells  that  they  wrought, 

Till  a  city  came  to  naught,— 

Hands  and  hair  and  hearts,  at  last, 

Dust!  Till  now,  their  slumbers  past, 

Roses  bloom  about  her  door, 

Beauty,  beauty  evermore.   .    .    . 

Trojan  maidens  who  had  been 

Still,  white  faces  through  the  din 

Of  those  chariots  gone  by, 

Stars  above  a  troubled  sky — 

Beauty  passing  to  re-pass, 

Pearl-white  feet  across  the  grass, 

Crowns  of  beauty  that  they  wore 

[611 


FOR  A  SEQUESTERED  LADY 

Given  to  the  dust  for  more 

Roses,  roses  at  her  door.   .    .    . 

All  old  tales  of  beauty  dead, 

Hands  and  hair  and  lifted  head, 

Gone  from  cities  long  forgot: 

Rimini  and  Camelot, 

Lovers  who  had  been  like  light, 

Summertime  and  dream  .    .    .   and  Night 

Now,  their  night  of  sleeping  gone, 

Roses  rise  above  the  lawn. 

Roses,  roses  at  her  door, 
Roses  bringing  something  more 
Than  one  Summer  to  her  door  .    .   , 
Beauty,  beauty  evermore. 


[62] 


HERITAGE 

A  LL  purged,  at  last,  are  glories  in  the  dust, — 

Those  temples  that  were  worship  for  a 
day. 
The  gallant  banners  of  a  people's  trust, 

And  hands  and  lips — and  Aprils  brief  as  they. 
Beyond  their  lighted  moment  in  the  sun, 

They  bore  away  their  splendours  and  their 

stains ; 

Now  they  are  dust,  the  cleansing  ritual  done, 
And  only  their  dim  holiness  remains. 

Since  I  am  somehow  fashioned  out  of  these, 
The  quickened  dust  of  city,  saint  and  grass, 

Of  holy  altars  and  old  mysteries, — 

Let  me  be  mindful  of  them  where  I  pass, 

Dishonouring  not  this  garment  among  men, 

Lest  I  be  shamed  when  I  am  dust  again. 


[63] 


"SHIPPING  NEWS" 

(A  Maritime  Paper) 

JJERE  is  the  record  of  their  splendid  days: 

The  curving  prow,  the  tall  and  stately 
mast, 
And  all  the  width  and  wonder  of  their  ways, 

Reduced  to  little  printed  words,  at  last; 
The  Helen  Dover  docks,  the  Mary  Ann 

Departs  for  Ceylon  and  the  Eastern  trade; 
Arrived :   The  Queen,  with  cargoes  from  Japan, 
And  Richard  Kidd,  a  tramp,  and  Silver  Maid 

The  narrow  print  is  wide  enough  for  these: 
But    here:    "Reported    missing"    .    .    .    the 

type  fails, 

The  column  breaks  for  white  and  angry  seas, 
The  jagged  spars  thrust  through,  and  flapping 

sails 

Flagging  farewells  to  wind  and  sky  and  shore, 
Arrive  at  silent  ports,  and  leave  no  more 


[64] 


ARTICULATION 

YV/1TH  what  bright  symbols  have  we  learned, 
at  last, 

To  write  the  epic  of  the  tender  Springs! — 
We,  who  were  dumb  so  many  centuries  past, 

Who  found  no  word  for  frail  and  lovely  things. 
In  tongue-tied  wonder  at  the  blossoming  earth, 

We  watched  the  trailing  seasons  loiter  by, 
Too  inarticulate  of  their  transient  worth, 

Beyond  the  saddened  utterance  of  a  sigh. 

What  Aprils  taught  us,  children  at  the  knee, 
Word  by  slow  word,  the  language  April  knows ! 

What  Summers  broke  that  brooding  reverie, 
Through  patient  iterations  of  the  rose! — 

Ah,  dearest  tutors  of  our  lisping-time, 

Today  we  bring  you  of  our  brightest  rhyme. 


[65] 


MOONFLOWERS 

frail,  white  blooms  have  lit  the  Sum 
mer  night 
Like   ghosts   of   beauty   that   had   gone   too 

soon, — 

With  something  less  than  any  glimmering  light 
That  sways  and  faints  and  trembles  in  the 

moon. 
I  think  the  Earth,  grown  half -regretful,  now, 

Of  faces  that  were  lovely  of  old  time, 
Lifts  here  again  dim  hands  and  hair  and  brow, 
In  loveliness  more  fragile  than  a  rhyme. 

So  that  the  listening  night  has  somehow  learned 
A  way  of  prescient  waiting  through  the  dark, 

For  half-forgotten  loveliness  returned, — 
Too  frail  and  dim  for  eyes  like  ours  to  mark 

More  than  a  ghostly  glimmer  on  the  air, 

That  once  was  lighted  brows  and  hands  and 
hair. 


[66] 


CHALLENGE 

THE  Spring  has  crowned  the  startled  grass 

with  light, 

And  lit  each  apple-tree  with  blooms  of  May, 
Her    footprints    flowering    through    the    silent 

night, 
Show  where  she  went  her  hurried,  careless 

way   .    .    . 
A  magic  that  awakens  and  goes  by, 

Too  care-free  to  be  bound,  too  fickle-fleet, 
Leaves  helpless  legions  staring  at  the  sky, 
Confronted  with  a  later,  sure  defeat. 

A  bird,  half -hid  among  the  apple  boughs, 

Sings  and  sings  on  above  the  blossoming  earth, 
A  high,  clear  music  of  eternal  vows 
To    transient    joy   .    .    .   and    joy's    eternal 

worth   .    .    . 

Above  the  certain  wreck,  this  dauntless  thing, 
Caught  up  and  hurled  from  ruined  Spring  to 
Spring. 


[67] 


BEFORE   SPRING 

knows  what  endless  practices  are  held, 
Before  bright  pencils  mark  the   April 

earth 

Where  grasses  learn  how  gaiety  is  spelled, 

And  jonquils  trace  the  golden  writs  of  mirth; 
Some  slow,  imperfect  patterns  must  be  wrought 

Some,  cast  aside  in  dark,  abandoned  crypts, 
Before  the  swift,  impulsive  hands  are  taught 
To  shape  the  Spring's  illuminated  scripts. 

What  gifted  fingers  are  so  quick  to  mould 
And  form  aright  the  thin  Aprilian  line, 

The  frail,  fair  lettering  in  green  and  gold ! — 
What  art  has  taught  that  intricate  design, 

From  which  those  later  scriveners  compose 

Such  final,  crowning  rubrics  as  the  rose ! 


[68] 


MOONS   KNOW  NO  TIME 

A/f OONLIGHT  is  memory   .    .    ,   though  the 
sun  forget, 

And  moonlight  lingers  by  a  crumbling  wall, 
And   grass-grown   walks   where   flagging-stones 
are  set 

For  feet  that  pass  that  way  no  more  at  all. 
Summers  gone  by,  and  laughter  that  is  still, 

And  hair  whose  gold  is  hidden  from  the  sun, — 
Moonlight  remembering  on  a  lonesome  hill 

Might  half  return  them,  one  by  ghostly  one. 

Suns  mark  the  days   .    .    .   but  moonlight  knows 
no  time, 

Finding  old  springs  in  every  lighted  face, 
Old  musics  in  a  whisper  hushed  like  rhyme: 

And  Summers  that  have  gone  and  left  no  trace, 
Are  one  with  each  new  Summer  come  to  flower, 
Moving  in  moonlight  through  a  haunted  hour. 


[68] 


MY  NEIGHBOUR 

"LJE  never  could  grow  old,  for  gay  Romance 

Walks    with    him    daily    through    our 
crowded  ways, 
Illumining  each  common  circumstance, 

And  rearing  splendid  dreams  about  his  days. 
Whether  he  walks  or  rides,  it  is  the  same, 

He  is  the  grey-haired  knight,  his  cane  for  lance, 
On  some  adventure  for  a  lady's  name, 

With  fancied  kings  and  queens  for  confidants. 

Folk  that  he  meets — woman  or  man  or  boy — 
All  play  a  role  in  some  forgotten  place: 

His  carriage  is  a  chariot  at  Troy, 

And    somewhere,    at    the    end,    is    Helen's 
face  .    .    . 

I  like  to  wonder,  when  he  looks  at  me, 

What  glorious  thing,  that  instant,  I  may  be. 


[70] 


AT  THE  NEXT  TABLE 

r\    LADY  like  a  tea-cup, 
'         A  flower,  or  a  fan, 
What  dear,  archaic  fancy 

Devised  you  as  it  ran 
Through  gone  Arcadian  summers 

Of  sweet  and  gentle  airs, 
Of  roses  at  the  casement, 

And   slippers  on  the  stairs? 
O,  Lady  like  a  poem 

Out  of  the  olden  time, 
Be  now  the  fading  pattern 

Of  this  archaic  rhyme. 


[71] 


SALVAGE 

QINCE  we  have  learned  how  beauty  comes  and 
goes: 

A  phantom  fading  from  the  hills  like  light, 
Summer  and  slow  disaster  in  the  rose, 

An  April  face  that  wanders  toward  the  night, — 
It  is  not  strange  that  we  who  linger  here, 

Are  haunted  by  the  colours  of  the  sky, 
The  ghost  of  beauty  in  the  stricken  year, 

The  thought  of  beauty  gone  too  swiftly  by. 

So  that  men  strive  with  chisel,  pen  and  brush, 
To  save  the  lifted  brow,  the  transient  spring, 

Happy  if  they  may  fix  the  fading  blush, 
Or  make  the  mood  a  memorable  thing, 

And  snare  one  glowing  hour  from  fleeting  time, 
A  golden  bird,  caged  in  a  golden  rhyme. 


[72] 


IN  A  GIRLS'  SCHOOL 

walls  will  not  forget,  through  later 
days, 
How  they  had  bloomed  with  lifted,  tossing 

heads 
Of  swaying  girls  who  thronged  these  ordered 

ways 

Like  windy  tulips  blowing  in  their  beds. 
Stones  may  remember  laughter  down  a  hall, 
And  eyes  more  bright  than  blossoms  in  the 

grass,— 

A  dream  to  haunt  them — after  all  and  all — 
When  they  are  dust  with  dusty  things  that 
pass. 

So  that  some  wind  of  beauty,  waking  then, 
Whose  breath  shall  be  new  summertimes  for 

earth, 

Will  stir  these  scattered  stones  to  dreams,  again, 
Of  blowing  shapes,  of  brightening  eyes  and 

mirth, 

And  corridors,  like  windy  tulip  beds, 
Of  swaying  girls  and  beautiful,  bright  heads. 
[731 


AT  ELSINORE 

...  A  ND    still,  they   say,    when   nights   are 
nearly  spent, 

And  watchmen  take  their  doze,  before  relief, 
He  comes  to  walk  upon  the  battlement, 

And  all  his  brow  is  clouded  with  a  grief. 
From  end  to  end,  from  end  to  end  he  goes, 

Muttering  his  maledictions — and  a  name 
Of  one  who  drowned,  it  seems — though  no  one 
knows, 

For  there's  a  madness  in  his  words,  they  claim. 


[74] 


TO  WILLIAM   GRIFFITH 

(He  that  is  Pierrot) 

T    THINK  your  soul  goes  clad  in  dominoes, 

Haunting  old  gardens  that  are  always 
June, 
To  sit  within  the  shadow  of  a  rose, 

And  strum  and  sing  your  every  fragile  tune. 
For  all  we  meet  you  where  the  great  world  rides, 

You  have  no  league  with  anything  wre  are : 
Your  life  is  all  entangled  in  the  tides 
Of  goblin  moons  and  musics  and  a  star. 

You  talk  to  us  of  what  the  moment  brings, 
Of  earnest  men  and  worlds  of  work-a-day, 

Of  stocks  and  stores  and  half  a  hundred  things, — 
And  all  the  while,  your  soul  is  leagues  away, 

Troubling  old  ghostly  gardens  where  it  goes, 

Motlied  with  moonlight  and  your  dominoes. 


[75] 


REVELATION 

YffALKING  these  long,  late  twilights  of  the 
Spring, 

Where  all  the  fret  of  life  seems  nothing  worth, 
And  grief,  itself,  a  half-forgotten  thing, 

Less   keen   than   these   cool    odours   of   the 

earth, — 
I  sometimes  think  we  find  the  secret  gate 

That  gives  on  gardens  of  enchanted  light, 
Restoring  glories  that  we  lost  of  late, 

To  quiet  wisdom  and  more  certain  sight. 

A  holier  mood  will  haunt  our  stubborn  will, 
Till  we   shall   see   revealments  through   the 
grass, 

And  stop,  abashed,  before  a  daffodil, 

A  shining  weed,  a  stone  on  ways  we  pass, 

Stand  with  bared  head  before  the  evening  star, 

And  know  these  holy  things  for  what  they  are. 


[76] 


DISCOVERY 

T  SHALL  discover  .    .    .   after  all  and  all   ... 
From  what    alembic   issues    forth   the 
Spring, 

What  cryptic  finger,  moving  by  a  wall, 
Leaves  tulip  writs  in  tulip  colouring; 
I  shall  have  knowledge  of  the  tug  and  grip 
Of  tender  roots  where  they  are  thrust  and 

curled, 

And  what  frail  doors  are  opened  to  let  slip 
The  hidden  spear  into  the  lighted  world. 

So  I  shall  know  the  mint  of  daffodils, 

In  darkened  rooms  where  colour  comes  to 
birth, 

The  mouldy  chamber  where  the  rose  distils 
A  sweetness  that  is  Summer  for  the  earth  .  .  . 

And  all  the  strange,  alchemic,  secret  spell, 

I  shall  discover,    .    .    .  but  I  shall  not  tell. 


[77] 


FOR  BOB:  A  DOG 

(In  Memoriam) 

'V'OU,  who  would  never  leave  us  to  our  sleeping, 

But  ever  nosed  us  out  of  bed  to  play, 
How  can  we  ever  think  of  you  as  keeping 

So  strangely  still,  as  stirless  as  the  clay? 
We  cannot  think  you  dead  to  games  and  laughter; 

Surely  in  some  bright  place  beyond  the  sun, 
Girls  race  and  play,  and  you  go  racing  after, 

And  lie  across  their  feet  when  games  are  done. 

Who  knows,  but  in  our  separate  times  and  places 
When  we  have  slept  the  last,  last  sleep  away, 

You  yet  may  come,  your  nose  against  our  faces, 
And  wake  us  to  our  bright,  immortal  play  .  .  . 

And  if  you  startle  us  with  rude  surprise, 

You'll  beg — and  win — forgiveness  with  those  eyes. 


[78] 


IN  SUMMER 

T  THINK  these  stars  that  draw  so  strangely 

near, 

That  lean  and  listen  for  the  turning  earth, 
Are  never  wholly  careless  when  they  hear 

The  murmur  of  her  hushed  and  quiet  mirth, — 
But  looking  out  upon  a  world  in  bloom, 

They  half -remember,  and  they  heed  and  hark : 
An  old,  old  sweetness  in  the  scented  gloom, 
An  old,  old  music  in  the  singing  dark. 

Their  own  full  Summers  gone,  such  aeons  past, 
Bird-song  and  bloom  and  swallow  from  the 

sky, 

These  dead,  desireless  worlds  find  here,  at  last, 
Something  remembered  when  the  earth  turns 

by, 
Sweet   with    these    blowing    odours    they    had 

known, 
This  happy  music  that  was  once  their  own. 


[79] 


SURVIVAL 

TVyf EN   building   ships,    and   women    cooking 
meals, 

The  mothering  girl-child  with  her  doll  in  arms, 
The  ploughman  trudging  at  his  horse's  heels, 

The  fires  we  lay,  our  chill  at  war's  alarms : — 
These  epic,  ancient  gestures  of  the  race 

Have  still  the  greatness  of  those  great  who 

wrought 
In  other  days  than  ours,  who  keep  their  place 

Along  our  shadowy  borderlands  of  thought. 

A  word  evokes  them, — aye,  a  lifted  hand 

Stirs  slumbrous  queens  whose  sceptres  were 

upraised 

For  life  or  death  in  what  forgotten  land ! — 
Where  cowherds  pass,  old  Grecian  kine  are 

grazed, 

And  many  a  rocking-horse  and  laughing  boy 
Lead  back  the  tragic  chariots  of  Troy. 


[80] 


NOMENCLATURE 

T^HERE  is  a  magic  in  the  shining  name, 

A  legacy  that  beauty  yields  to  speech, 
Something  more  quick  and  subtle  than  her  fame, — 
Who  else  had  blown  beyond  our  stunted  reach. 
By  what  occult  divining  does  the  will 

Fashion  the  cryptic  word  whose  sound  and 

sense 

Evoke  the  trembling  image,  lovely  still, 
Of  something  lost  but  for  this  recompense? 

There  have  been  ships  whose  names  were  music's 
own; 

But  speak  them — and  the  lifted  prows  go  by ! 
Women  who  stir  as  from  the  sculptor's  stone, 

For  syllables  still  tender  as  a  sigh   .    .    . 
And  banished  Aprils  that  we  saw  and  heard, 
Return  their  lights  and  colours   .    .    .  in  a  word. 


[81] 


TO  ONE  RETURNED  FROM  A  JOURNEY 


have  come  home  with  old  seas  in  your 
speech, 
And  glimmering  sea-roads   meeting  in  your 

mind: 

The  curve  of  creeping  silver  up  the  beach, 
And  mornings  whose  white  splendours  daze 

and  blind. 
You  have  brought  word  of  ships  and  where  they 

go, 

Their  names  like  music,  and  the  flags  they  fly  : 
Steamer   .    .    .   and  barque   .    .    .   and  churning 

tug  and  tow, 
And  a  lone  sail  at  sunset  blowing  by. 

Shoreline  and  mist  have  still  their  ancient  way  : 
Through  all  your  speech  the  sea's  long  rise  and 
fall 

Sound  their  slow  musics  in  the  words  you  say  :  — 
And  I  who  sit  and  listen  to  it  all, 

Am  like  an  absent  lover  who  would  hear 

News  of  one  loved,  incalculably  dear. 

[82] 


ATTENDANTS 

HPHE  mild-eyed  Oxen  and  the  gentle  Ass, 

By  manger  or  in  pastures  that  they  graze, 
Lift  their  slow  heads  to  watch  us  where  we  pass, 

A  reminiscent  wonder  in  their  gaze. 
Their  low  humility  is  like  a  crown, 

A  grave  distinction  they  have  come  to  wear, — 
Their  look  gone  past  us — to  a  little  Town, 

And  a  white  miracle  that  happened  there. 

An  old,  old  vision  haunts  those  quiet  eyes, 
Where   proud   remembrance    drifts   to   them 

again, 

Of  Something  that  has  made  them  humbly  wise, 
— These  burden-bearers  for  the  race  of  men — 
And  lightens  every  load  they  lift  or  pull, 
Something  that  chanced  because  the  Inn  was 
full. 


[83] 


RENDEZVOUS 

...   GO  she  came  back  to  you  and  me, 

She     who     had     been     the     lovely 
third   .    .    . 
A  little,  blue  ghost  in  time  for  tea; 

Smiling  and  grave  and  with  no  word 
Of  how  things  fare  with  such  as  she, 
But  suddenly  lonely  when  she  heard, 

In  that  still  place,  the  fragile  clink 
Of  tea  cups,  and  her  own  dear  name, 
'Twas  like  her  to  be  touched,  I  think, 

With  smiling  pity  for  you  and  me; — 
So,  in  a  breathless  haste,  she  came, 
A  little,  blue  ghost  in  time  for  tea. 


[84] 


SONNETS   FROM  A  HOSPITAL 


SPRING 

T>  EMEMBERING   sunlight  on  the  steepled 
square, 

Remembering  April's  way  with  little  streets, 
And  pouter  pigeons  coasting  down  the  air, 

Spilling  a  beauty,  like  white-crested  fleets, — 
I  have  imagined,  in  these  pain-racked  days, 

The  look  of  grasses  thrusting  through  the  earth, 
Of  tender  shoots  along  green-bordered  ways, 

Of  hedges,  and  their  first,  frail  blossoming 
mirth. 

I  have  imagined,  too,  in  some  such  wise 

Death  may  allow,  within  her  darkened  room, 
Some  subtle  intimation  of  wide  skies, 

Of  startled  grasses,  and  the  hedge  in  bloom, — 
And  we  may  know  when  some  far  spring  comes 

down, 

Wearing  her  magic  slippers  through  the  town. 
[85] 


SONNETS  FROM  A  HOSPITAL 
II 

FEVER 

The  cool,  sweet  earth  is  cool  and  sweet  indeed, 

To  flesh  that  fever  makes  a  cinder  of, — 
An  angel  with  cool  hands  to  cup  his  need, 

In  ministrations,  kinder  yet  than  love. 
There,  a  cool  cheek  to  lay  against  his  own, 

And  rest  for  that  hot  blood's  too  restless  will, 
His  hands  to  curve  on  root  or  clod  or  stone; — 

And  deep-dug  earth  is  very,  very  still. 

Yet  some,  remembering  happiness  he  had 
Of  living  things,  of  leaf  and  sun  and  air, 

Could  pity  him  his  prison,  and  be  sad, — 
Not  knowing  how  he  is  companioned  there, 

Nor  how,  for  such  as  he  and  his  great  need, 

The  cool,  sweet  earth  is  cool  and  sweet  indeed. 

Ill 

RUINS 

The  spring  comes  in  to  me  like  spring  in  Rome, — 

As  year  by  year  those  ruins,  dead  to  mirth, 
Sense  a  strange  quickening  in  the  sweetened 

loam, 

Where  new,  returning  Aprils  take  the  earth; 
[86] 


SONNETS  FROM  A  HOSPITAL 

Something  they  lost,  so  many  centuries  gone, 
Something  too  swift  and  subtle  for  a  word, 

Is  half-remembered — in  a  shattered  faun, 
A  stained  and  broken  bird-bath,  and  its  bird. 

But  otherwise,  all  alien  comes  the  Spring, 

Touching   but   not   transforming   what   they 
are: 

Flowers  in  the  cranny  but  a  foolish  thing, 
Grass  in  the  pavements,  foreign  as  a  star  .    .    . 

Each  reminiscent,  half-insensate  stone 

Mocked  with  new  life  it  cannot  call  its  own. 


IV 

VISITATION 

All  through  my  fevered  nights,  their  grey  ghosts 

came, 

The  great,  cool  sailing  ships  blown  softly  by, 
More  fair  than  any  beauty  that  we  name, 

Girdled  of  water,  chrismed  of  the  sky. 
I  cannot  tell  what  hidden  bales  of  prize, 

What  mystic  spell  may  haunt  the  wraiths  of 

ships, 

But  these  were  secret  healing  on  my  eyes, 
And  these  were  cooling  water  at  my  lips. 
[87] 


SONNETS  FROM  A  HOSPITAL 

It  may  be,  when  the  final  fever  ends, 

And  flesh  burns  out,  at  last,  and  pulses  fail, 

They  will  not  know,  my  grieved  and  stricken 

friends, 
How  in  that  instant  I  had  given  hail 

To  one  white  ship  come  ghostwise  in  from  sea, 

And  how  at  last  that  it  is  well  with  me. 


[88] 


THIS  LANE  IN  MAY 

A    FRAGRANCE  lingers,  though  the  rains  be 

done; 

And  apple-trees  have  shaken  from  their  hair 
The  thin  and  shining  blossoms,  one  by  one, 

Starring  the  roadway  like  a  silver  stair. 
And  something  softer  than  the  rain  comes  by, 

Older  and  dearer  than  these  bright,  new  days : 
An  odour   .    .    .  or  a  trick  of  lights  that  lie 
Familiar  on  these  grass-grown,  rutted  ways. 

This  lane  in  May  is  such  a  haunted  thing, 
For  all  the  newness  of  the  rain- wet  trees : 

An  old,  old  May,  remembered  of  the  Spring, 
Returning  ghostwise  on  such  days  as  these, 

Moves  in  the  blowing  odours  where  they  pass, 

Trailing  these  scattered  blossoms  in  the  grass. 


[89] 


FUGITIVE 

"DEHIND  these  falling  curtains  of  the  rain, 

Beauty  goes  by,  a  phantom  on  the  hill, 
A  timid  fugitive  beyond  the  lane, 

In  rainy  silver, — and  so  shy  and  still 
That  only  peering  eyes  of  some  hid  bird, 

Or  furry  ears  that  listened  by  a  stone, 
Could  guess  at  Something  neither  seen  nor  heard, 

Finding  escape,  and  faring  by,  alone. 

For  eyes  like  ours,  too  faint  a  thing  and  fleet, 
Too  lightly  running  for  such  ears  to  hear 

The  stealthy  going  of  those  weightless  feet; 
No  thrilling  sight  or  sound  of  her  comes  near, 

Only  the  shining  grasses  where  they  lie, 
Give  hint  of  silver  slippers  hasting  by. 


[90] 


AN  OLD   GARDENER 

TLJE  has  always  a  wise  and  knowing  air: 

For   him   there   is  no   mystery  in  the 
mould, 
Where  seeds  put  on  the  shimmering  things  they 

wear, 

And  come  to  birth  in  yellow,  green,  and  gold. 
His  quizzical,  grey  eyes  can  somehow  mark 
The  silver  shaft  of  sunlight  where  it  goes, 
Still  radiant  and  undarkened  in  the  dark, 
To  find  the  seed  room  of  the  hidden  rose. 

For  him  the  secret  alchemies  are  plain; 

He  tells  most  surely  how  these  things  befall, 
In  words  grown  intimate  with  roots  and  rain; 

And  yet,  he  is  so  tender  of  it  all, 
So  wise  and  kind  in  ways  of  leaf  and  sod, 
Sometimes  I  think  him  very  like  to  God. 


[91] 


THE   VEIL 

T1JERE  where  the  snow  comes  white ly  down, 

All  worldiness  is  done; 
The  saintly,  silent  little  Town 
Is  like  a  nun; 

Most  holy  in  her  street  and  spire, 

Most  perfectly  at  rest,— 
Ah,  God,  who  knows  what  hid  desire 

Is  in  her  breast, 

Where  peony  or  daffodil 

Or  wayward  rose  begins, 
Burning  her  drifted  bosom,  still, 

Like  secret  sins. 


[92] 


THE  YEAR  IS  OLD 

"T\AY  fades  with  fading  colours  from  the  sky, 

And  blue  smoke  blowing  where  the  hills 
are  gold, 
Is  all  a  tale  of  loveliness  gone  by: 

Summer  is  ended,  and  the  year  is  old, 
Beauty  and  bloom  are  wet  leaves  in  the  grass, 

And  music  is  a  lone  wind  on  the  hill, 
Crying  that  all  things  beautiful  must  pass, 
Crying  that  beauty  is  remembered  still. 

There  will  be  wood-mist  moving  by  the  gate, 
There  will  be  gathering  to  the  fire  by  night, 

The  greying  ashes  falling  in  the  grate, — 
And  long  remembering,  in  the  failing  light, 

Of  ghosts  returning  for  a  wisp  of  fame, 

Cloudy  and  brief  along  the  smoke  and  flame. 


[93] 


MARINERS 

TV/I" EN  who  have  loved  the  ships  they  took  to 

sea, 
Loved  the  tall  masts,  the  prows  that  creamed 

with  foam, 
Have  learned,  deep  in  their  hearts,  how  it  might 

be 

That  there  is  yet  a  dearer  thing  than  home. 
The  decks  they  walk,  the  rigging  in  the  stars, 
The  clean  boards  counted  in  the  watch  they 

keep,— 

These,  and  the  sunlight  on  the  slippery  spars, 
Will  haunt  them  ever,  waking  and  asleep. 

Ashore,  these  men  are  not  as  other  men; 

They  walk  as  strangers  through  the  crowded 

street, 
Or,  brooding  by  their  fires,  they  hear  again 

The  drone  astern,  where  gurgling  waters  meet, 
Or  see  again  a  wide  and  blue  lagoon, 
And  a  lone  ship  that  rides  there  with  the  moon. 


[94] 


AN  ABANDONED   INN 

A  LONG    this    stillness    steals    their    ghostly 

laughter : 
The  oaths  they  swore,  the  clamant  song  and 

jest, 

Are  haunting  still  each  oaken  beam  and  rafter, 
That  looked  on  many  a  gay,  forgotten  guest. 
The  clink  of  cups,  the  muffled  clang  of  swords, 
These,  and   the   flapping   cards,  will  not  be 

stilled, 
Though   dust   has   spread  the  long-abandoned 

boards, 
And  hides  at  last  the  crimson  wine  they  spilled. 

And  still,  they  say,  on  sullen  nights  of  rain, 
A  passer-by  may  hear,  beyond  the  door, 

An  old  accounting  for  this  ugly  stain 

That  makes  an  evil  pattern  on  the  floor — 

A  sound  of  dice — an  oath — a  crashing  chair  .   .   . 

And  sudden,  grievous  silence  fallen  there. 


[95] 


PRONE 

T1J  ERE  where  these  grasses  thrust  between  my 
fingers, 

And  where  the  earth  against  my  palms  is  cool, 
The   hot  day   dies   .    .    .  and   only   late   light 
lingers 

Above  the  shadowed  valley's  misty  pool. 
The  trees  have  bent  above  me  like  tall  lovers, 

The  stars  return  their  slow,  familiar  way, 
And  a  great,  stirless  quiet  comes  and  covers 

The  traveller  resting  at  the  end  of  day. 

I  think  this  body,  with  its  foolish  fears, 
May  grow  less  foolish  and  less  fearful  so, 

Learning  that  at  the  end  of  wandering  years, 
Waits  but  this  house  that  it  has  come  to  know, 

Familiar  in  its  sleepy-hearted  mirth, 

The  cool  and  kind  and  hospitable  earth. 


[96] 


REVIVAL 

'"PHIS  body,  gathering  slumber  as  it  goes, 

Will  come  too  full  of  sleep  for  wandering, 
And  so  lie  down, — and  yet  it  somehow  knows 

It  never  could  be  careless  of  the  Spring; 
But  turning  with  the  happy-minded  earth, 

When  straying  Aprils  stir  the  sentient  mould, 
It  still  will  know  these  festivals  of  mirth, 

These  subtle  sorceries  of  green  and  gold. 

And  we  may  yet  discover,  after  all, 

How  flesh  is  glory  whitening  on  the  hedge, 

Or  wine-red  tulips  burning  at  a  wall ; — 

And  we  may  learn,  by  some  wild-flowered 
ledge, 

How  solemn  dust  at  last  turns  gay  again, 

To  light  the  Spring  for  later,  wandering  men. 


[97] 


IMPOSTOR 

HpHIS  Autumn  of  the  yellow  lanes 
Is  come  a  sorry  vagabond, 
Grown  tearful  now  and  over-fond 

Of  grey  and  melancholy  rains. 

He  loves  his  griefs  and  broken  sighs, 
His  sorrows  of  a  thousand  years, — 
And  thinks  we  do  not  know  those  tears 

Are  wood-smoke  in  his  eyes. 

If  leaves  go  by  us  in  a  gust, 

He  needs  must  clutch  his  heart,  and  say 
"Alas"  or  else  "Alack-a-day "— 

And  thinks  we  take  it  all  on  trust. 

So  sad  and  sad  a  rake  he  is! — 

And  yet  so  glad  of  being  sad, 

Knowing  no  fellow  ever  had 
Such  fine,  becoming  griefs  as  his. 


[98] 


SNOW  DUSK 

iron  twilight  closes,  and  the  steep 
Gates  of  the  day  where  late  the  light  was 
hurled, 
Swing  to  on  silent  hinges,  and  a  sleep, 

A  still,  white  sleep  is  fallen  on  the  world. 
There  is  no  stir  these  trackless  miles  around : 
The  Earth  is  turned  a  grey  cathedral  close, 
Where  is  forgot  all  motion  and  all  sound, 
Beneath  these  smooth,  obliterating  snows. 

One  burning  taper  trembles   .    .    .   and  the  sky 
Curves  like  a  dome  where  cloudy  anthems  are, 

Above  immaculate  distances  that  lie 
In  thoughtful  adoration  of  a  star   .    .    . 

Earth  has  her  veil,  and  takes  her  silent  vow : 

Nothing  save  holiness  is  left  her  now. 


[99] 


MOOD 

grave,  unlabouring  beauty  of  the  dusk, 
Stars  and  still  fields  and  swallows  in  the 
sky, 
These   cool,   damp   odours  faint   with   earthen 

musk, 
The  fading  sheep  like  ghosts  of  sheep  gone 

by,- 

Have  held  so  long  the  thought  of  brooding  men, 
That  something  like  a   mood   has  gathered 

there, 

Piled  deep  and  high,  again  and  yet  again, 
A  moving,  thoughtful  presence  on  the  air. 

So  when  the  last  light  passes  from  the  hill, 
Leaving  these  fields  a  glimmering  grey  and 

blue, 

And  the  last  bell  has  sounded  and  grown  still, — 
These    blinking    stars    awake    and    tremble 

through, 
Re-blossomed  from  those  gathering   moods  of 

time, 

Like  brooding  thoughts  that  flower  into  rhyme. 
[100] 


SHIPS  IN  HARBOUR 

T  HAVE  not  known  a  quieter  thing  than  ships, 
Nor  any  dreamers  steeped  in  dream  as 
these, 

For  all  that  they  have  tracked  disastrous  seas, 
And  winds  that  left  their  sails  in  flagging  strips; 
Nothing  disturbs  them  now,  no  stormy  grips 
That  once  had  hurt  their  sides,  no  crash  or 

swell, 

Nor  can  the  fretful  harbour  quite  dispel 
This  quiet  that  they  learned  on  lonely  trips. 

They  have  no  part  in  all  the  noisy  noons; 
They  are  become  as  dreams  of  ships  that  go 
Back  to  the  secret  waters  that  they  know, 

Each  as  she  will  to  unforgot  lagoons, 

Where  nothing  moves  except  the  ghostly  spars 
That  mark  the  patient  watches  on  the  stars. 


[101] 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL     FINE     OF    25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


SEP  20    '933 
SEP  21  1933 

FEB    191934 
MAY  18  1934 

APfl  30  1936 


MAY    14  1936 
23  1949 


1954 


JUN  22 
JUN21; 


FEB  3    t959 


LD  21-50m-l,'33 


469681 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


